


Harper's Worry

by InkSiren



Series: Sharpe's Fanfic [7]
Category: Sharpe (TV), Sharpe - All Media Types, Sharpe Series - Bernard Cornwell
Genre: Anatomy, Angst, Banter, Cannon-Typical Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Heartbeats, Hearts, Injury, Missing Scene, Patrick is stressed, Richard is a loose cannon, Team as Family, Whump, Worry, nonsexual cardiophelia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27947243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSiren/pseuds/InkSiren
Summary: Patrick notices Richard I-Think-I'm-Invincible Sharpe has a heart that's uncomfortably easy to find. It stresses him out just a little bit.
Series: Sharpe's Fanfic [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034673
Comments: 19
Kudos: 8





	Harper's Worry

**Author's Note:**

> So some people have visible heartbeats just as a consequence of the chest wall being thinner. My friend BlueNeutrino noticed that Sean has a pretty perfect build for that and judging by the fact that the man is 61 and doing action films still it's safe to say his heart is in better shape than most of his characters.
> 
> Ergo, headcannon created that Richard Sharpe is one of those people with a visible heartbeat.

Patrick isn’t shy about nudity. It hardly matters. Seeing a man’s intestines is far worse than anything God designed to be on the outside in the first place, and maybe that’s why Richard’s particular quirk disturbs him so much.

Richard Sharpe, Patrick Harper realises after playing a rough round of football, has a heart he can see beating in his very chest.

It’s a strange, almost macabre thing to realize, and Patrick finds himself staring and then quickly looking away, like he’s seen something indecent. Seeing the pulse in another soldier’s throat is common enough. He’s sought it out plenty of times when sifting among the dead. Hearing a man’s heart in his chest or feeling it beat against his hand as he pulls him out of the reaper’s scythe is also common enough, but never before has he seen a man flat on his back and laughing, and noticed that he can see the throbbing of the heart itself strong in the softness between ribs.

He didn’t know it was possible, and as he helps Richard up and tries not to stare he wonders if that’s not some kind of danger. Surely that’s not normal, being able to see so clearly what is meant to be hidden deeply away for its own protection.

“Alright then sir?” he asks, clapping Richard on the shoulder and Richard gives him a strange look, still grinning.

“Fine, Pat, and you?” he asks, almost teasing. “Sore from being beaten so severely?”

He thuds Patrick good-naturedly on the chest and Patrick grunts, letting Richard go and wondering if he could safely do the same. Suddenly he seems so fragile, and Patrick goes green around the gills thinking about how Richard has an aversion to the buttons on his uniform.

It’s as if nothing is quite doing its job to shield the one thing even Richard cannot afford to damage.

He never quite manages to bring it up with Richard, either. Not for a long time. He almost asks the surgeon a few times, but it isn’t until Father Curtis tells him Richard doesn’t even have till dawn that he finally feels like he must know.

“Father,” he begins, holding the sword he’s been given and trying to unstick the lump in his throat. “I know it may be too late to ask a thing like this but…”

He can feel the priest looking at him, patiently waiting with that honest sympathy in his eyes.

“Are some men just...built more vulnerable?”

Curtis sits, a light frown on his face. “What do you mean, more vulnerable? Some men are sick from childhood, that’s an unfortunate result of the world we live in, Pat.”

Patrick shakes his head, shifting his grip on the sword. “No, I know that it’s just...Major Sharpe. I noticed some while back that his--his heart is real easy to see," he gestures at his own chest "and I’ve always thought that seemed dangerous. Before him I never knew it could be anhthin’ but heard or felt.”

Curtis considers, but then shakes his head once. “I cannot say I’ve noticed myself on any of the men I’ve treated, but Major Sharpe has a lean build and a strong heart. It follows it might be seen from time to time without cause for concern. I found no abnormalities to the Major's skeleton while looking him over.”

He doesn’t feel convinced, but he nods all the same. “What makes you say it’s strong?” he asks, searching the priest’s face for a hope that wasn’t there earlier. It’s still not there, only that same guarded sympathy. “Surely you couldn’t say that and still think that he’ll be dead by morning.”

“It is because he is not dead already that I say he has a strong heart, Pat,” Curtis says gently. “A man with a weak one wouldn’t have been breathing for you to find at all.”

Curtis is right about one thing, Richard does have a strong heart. It’s strong enough to be seen past its guard, it’s strong enough to keep him alive in the dying room, and it’s even strong enough to survive the horrible shivering treatment they put him through. The shuddering as they pour icy water across his body scares Patrick, scares him deeply, and he cannot get Curtis’ words out of his head.

_Another day burning and his heart will stop beating._

No condemnation in that, no question. Just a soldier’s honesty that this is the last shot they have in this battle.

Patrick can see the beating in Richard’s chest all the more as he shivers and gasps, and he takes care not to pour the water directly across it for fear that would simply be the end of him. Somehow, all at once, Richard looks terribly vulnerable and terribly strong, and Patrick feels guilty for being grateful when the treatment is over and they gather Richard up to wrap him in blankets.

He lays his friend in the bed himself, the body cooler and still shivering, and he covers his chest with a sheet.

“There you are sir. You’ve handled the worst of it now. All that’s left is for you to come back to us.”

It worked the first night, and so for the second Patrick leaves his Major in the girl’s care. In the end, he’s grateful he did and he’s able to gift that sword over after all.

It’s months later, when the fear is no longer raw and the memory not so harsh that Patrick finds himself bringing it up over a bottle of arrack.

“Are you aware that your heart doesn’t stay where it’s meant to?”

Richard pulls a very interesting face at that, more than a little drunk himself, and he looks at Patrick. “What are you on about now? Course it stays where it’s meant to or else we’d naut be having this conversation.”

Patrick rolls his eyes and takes another draw on the bottle. “I only mean you don’t look at most men and know just where it’s meant to be hiding. Yours is a bloody target. Half the time you can see it beating.”

Richard stares at him, blinking once. “You’ve gone mad, haven’t you? Every one of us is a frog target, only thing that might make me different is if they notice my rank.”

“Just,” Patrick feels frustrated, then gestures with the bottle at Richard’s open shirt. “Look for yourself, if you can. There, see, in the firelight I can see it. Even just sitting here.”

Richard pulls aside his shirt with a kind of scoffing noise and looks, straightening his spine and tilting his head so he can see his own chest. His expression quickly falls from one of mockery to a strange stillness, and Patrick knows he must see it too.

“Well. That is a bit strange, isn’t it? Didn’t rightly know that could happen.”

He smooths his free hand across his chest and presses his palm down, closing his eyes. “Odd, to feel it from both sides of my chest,” he mutters, then glances over at Patrick. “How’d you come to notice?”

Patrick shrugs, looking away into the fire and taking another drink from the bottle. “I had to,” he says at last. “For fear I’d shock it when we had to treat your fever. Father Curtis said what we were doing was hard on the heart. Very hard.” He looks at his hands then, and finally at his Major who has gone silent.

Richard is watching him, a slight furrow to his brow. “Pat..”

“Father Curtis also said it’s not dangerous, that it’s just the way God built you see, putting a strong heart in that thin chest of yours.”

He can feel himself talking strictly out of drink now, and yet he doesn’t quite know how to stop. “Which I don’t rightly understand. Wouldn’t you put a thing like that in a stronger cage?”

“Just because I’m not a bear of a man like you don’t mean I need correcting,” Richard says, a little put out. “My ribs have served me well all this time, reckon they’ll have to do me the rest of my life.” He snatches back the bottle and takes another drink, then almost before it’s down adds: “And look at you of all people, telling God he put me together wrong.”

“I’ve told him no such thing,” Patrick denies. “I only mean we’ve kept a flag in a heavier box than that, and I’d wager God thinks your heart is more important than a flag.”

They’re both quiet for a while after that, the drink wrapping them in a false warmth and the crackle of the fire filling the air.

“Well, you certainly do,” Richard says at last, but it’s fond. “But if you’re going to trust God on anything I’d trust he knew what he was doing when he picked out the ribs I was born with. I’ve always been a skinny bastard, but I’m stronger than I look and it’s seen me this far.” He gets up then, heading towards his tent, and Patrick snatches back the bottle from him on the way.

“It would do you to remember to eat more often,” he mutters, and Richard laughs.

“Goodnight Patrick, try not to stay up worrying about what you can do naut about. I think I’ve survived enough by now to wager I’m not so fragile as you seem to think.”

Patrick listens to Richard shuffle into his tent and flop onto his cot, and he sighs, turning the bottle in his hands.

“Goodnight, sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ever notice Richard doesn't close his jacket?
> 
> Like.
> 
> Ever?
> 
> Sean is very pretty but Richard you are constantly being shot at my guy.


End file.
